Published 7:00 pm, Monday, April 6, 2009

Wildflower Areas in Harris County Precinct 2 are filled with the colors of spring: pink, blue, lavender, yellow and orange.

Some areas, like the mass of bluebonnets near the bridge over Armand Bayou by the Bay Area Park exit are breathtaking. Other areas are less spectacular this year.

“The storm surge from Hurricane Ike killed grass and wildflowers over by the windmill near the Duck Pond at Bay Area Park and the Wildflower Area at Sylvan Beach,” said Jerri Fletcher, manager of the Landscaping Department at Harris County Precinct 2. “I hope to replant wildflowers there after rain has rinsed the salt out of the soil.”

“The Parks Department is aware that families sometimes take pictures of their children in the esplanades and is concerned for their safety,” Fletcher said.

She hopes to plant more wildflowers in the parks themselves to increase the number of family-safe Wildflower Areas.

Other wildflower areas that are not in an esplanade include those near county libraries and courthouse annexes such as the one near the Freeman library at the Courthouse Annex off Buccaneer in the Clear Lake area.

After a Wildflower Area is planted, Fletcher expects the seeds produced at the end of the season to keep repopulating the area with wildflowers and that the number of wildflowers will increases each year. It may a few years for a new area to produce a good crop of wildflowers through the reseeding process.

“The Parks Department lets the wildflowers in the esplanades go to seed at the end of each blooming season and does not mow until after the seed pods have turned brown,” Fletcher said. “Mowing is then done in such a way that the seeds are blown into the wildflower areas rather than away from them.”

“Plant bluebonnets in the fall, after you need to start wearing sweatshirts (typically in October or November), because the seeds need to be chilled. The Parks Department top dresses with sand then rakes the area to get the seeds into the ground. If the winter is warm, fewer seeds will germinate.”

The plants will bloom in the spring. The peak bloom time is usually from late March to early April. Fletcher said that the recent rains had caused the color of the bluebonnets to become a deeper blue.

“The Parks Department buys seed from a farm in Fredericksburg,” Fletcher continued. Locally, the seeds and plants may be purchased at such stores as Lowe’s and WalMart. Ordinarily, the seeds planted in our area are the variety called Lupinus texensis and will grow in a more soil types than other bluebonnet varieties.

“The Parks Department of Harris County Precinct 2 began seeding wildflowers in esplanades (medians of roadways) in 1992,” Fletcher said.

She said that other Precinct 2 Wildflower Areas are found on Fairmont between Walgreens and HEB, on Wallisville Road, on Uvalde and on a slope north of the Washburn Tunnel.

Texas A&M enthusiasts will be thrilled to learn that there is now a maroon blue bonnet. It was developed in the heart of Aggieland by the Texas Cooperative Extension through careful selection and breeding of pink bluebonnets.

The pink bluebonnets had been collected in San Antonio, then propagated along with white bluebonnets from other parts of the state so that Texas could celebrate its Sesquicentennial in1986 by planting the Texas state flag design in bluebonnets.

Bluebonnets are dear to the hearts of Texans, both native and transplanted. It was first declared a state flower to be represented by the variety Lupinus subcarnosus in 1901 during the 27th legislative session. Lupinus subcarnosus grows in sandy soils in South Texas and along the coast.

Because Lupinus subcarnosus, is grown throughout the state and is limited to sandy soils, a campaign began to supplant it with Lupinus texensis as the variety of bluebonnet named as the state flower.

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In an attempt to solve the problem without the ruffling feathers of competing bluebonnet fanciers, the Texas legislature, in 1971, added Lupinus texensis to the list of varieties to represent the Texas state flower and declared that all varieties of bluebonnets would be the state flower, thus averting future battles over which variety should be the Texas bluebonnet.